Monthly Archives: July 2005

There is a human bias to underestimate the role we play in creating our own circumstances (this is part of the ‘Fundamental Attribution Error’). I wonder also if there is an opposite bias to underestimate the effect that our circumstances have on us. If there is, what is it called?

Either way, I think both (putative) biases can be explained by perceptual selectivity and an adapted mind. It’s easier and more useful to notice how our circumstances affect things than how unchanging aspects of ourselves do. Contrawise, it’s hard to notice slow changes that our circumstances have on ourselves.

How does your involvement in the arms trade square with your playing ‘a positive role in our local and global communities’?

How should the members of academic and medical communities feel about this involvement?

You answered the first, with a straight ‘no’. I’d still like to know the answer to these two:

How does your involvement in the arms trade square with your playing ‘a positive role in our local and global communities’?

How should the members of academic and medical communities feel about this involvement?

And to this I’ll add another:

How can you say believe that sufficient “rigorous checks” are made on the exhibitors at DSEi and that their activities are “legitimate” when illegal activities, such as the sale of landmines (banned by international convention) have been shown, repeatedly, to be organised at DSEi? [1]. Are you able to provide details of the checks that your organisation carried out on exhibitors?

I’m not a socialist – but I agree with their point that markets will tend to seek efficiencies without respect for human dignity and well-being. I’m not a libertarian – but I agree with their point that the state will tend to aggregate power to itself, necessarily trampling on the freedoms of the individual. It seems to me like the key issue here is that of beaurocratic diffusion of responsibility – whether that diffusion happens in a multinational corporation or at the level of (inter)national government. The problem is only going to get more pressing as the connections between economies, polities and societies becomes more and more multiple, distal and diverse. The globalisation of markets requires the globalisation of responsibility, but at the same time makes personal responsibility near impossible. Time for radical new political solutions? No – time for radical old political solutions. The issues have got more tangled, but they were pretty tangled at the birth of modernity anyway. There’s enough old fashioned corruption, fascism, exploitation and war around that we can still get milage out of boring things like democracy, seperation of powers, the rule of law, human rights, welfare and free trade – despite all their problems and internal contradictions.

Oh, dammit. I wanted to say something about the diffusion of responsibility (remember Milgram! remember Asch! remember Arendt!) and i’ve ended up thinking about the Enlightenment foundations of political philosophy. Hmm. So. Anyone got any ideas of how to deal with the moral impact of the diffusion of responsibility in complex socities?

Frankly, just because something is legal doesn’t make it legitimate and anyway I find hard to believe that adequate checks are carried out at DSEi, especially given that we know it has, just for a first example, repeatedly haboured the brokering of illegal sales of landmines. I’ll be writing back to Elsevier, and in a few days I’ll post it that here too.

Part of any good advice on writing is to cut everything that isn’t doing some work. As the classic says ‘Omit needless words’, ‘Vigourous writing is concise’.

It occurs to me that sometimes, especially with scientific writing, that rather than have a choice of what to include and what to omit, you have a fixed number of ideas to include and your task, as a writer, is the mirror of the maxim above. Rather than ‘omit needless words’ you must find a way to make needed the words/ideas you are compelled to include. Any advice on how to do this would be appreciated.

Fox News: ‘the BBC almost operates as a foreign registered agent of Hezbollah and some of the other jihadist groups’ Roger Mosey, head of BBC Television News: ‘If I may leave our customary impartiality aside for a moment, the comments made on Fox News are beneath contempt.’

Dan wrote me a comment on my post on modelling local economies and the effect of shops which generate more income but send profits outside the local economy. It’s quite long so I’ve put most of it below the fold. Some context may be found from this post i’ve linked to before, by Dan at Indymedia.org.uk, about the
redevelopment plans current for Burngreave, Sheffield. Even if you’re not interested in redevelopment policy, there’s stuff about the utility and use of simulations that has general interest

Some abbreviations i’m not sure he defines: LM3 = Local Multiplier 3, a measure developed by the NEF which gauges how much of money spent in the local economy stays in the local economy. NEF = The New Economics Foundation. ABM = Agent Based Modelling. ODPM = Office of Deputy Prime Minister.

Anyway, Dan says:

This is all a bit like wading through underbrush at the moment. One day in the future, the concepts we’re trying to get at may emerge from the murk, but for now….

The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes.
The second step is to disregard that which can?t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading.
The third step is to presume that what can?t be measured easily really isn?t important. This is blindness.
The fourth step is to say that what can?t be easily measured really doesn?t exist. This is suicide.